Overview

The Hacker News MCP server provides quick access to curated story feeds that reflect what the community finds most valuable. This guide explains how to retrieve the three main story categories: top stories, new stories, and best stories. Each feed serves a different purpose and offers unique insights into community activity.

Understanding Story Types

Top Stories

Top stories represent the current front page of Hacker News—submissions that have gained significant traction through community upvotes and engagement. These stories reflect what's capturing attention right now and typically include a mix of breaking news, interesting technical articles, and thought-provoking discussions. Top stories are ideal when you want to know what the tech community is actively discussing at this moment.

New Stories

New stories are the latest submissions to Hacker News, displayed in chronological order regardless of votes or comments. This feed gives you the earliest possible view of incoming content before the community has determined its value. Use new stories when you want to monitor submissions in real-time, catch emerging topics before they trend, or track specific domains or subjects as they're posted.

Best Stories

Best stories represent submissions that have demonstrated sustained value and engagement over time. Unlike top stories, which can change rapidly, best stories are selected based on a combination of score, comment quality, and longevity. This feed is perfect for discovering high-quality content you might have missed or finding deeply engaging discussions that have proven their worth to the community.

Retrieving Stories

To access any of these feeds, simply ask your AI assistant through natural language queries. You might request "show me the top stories on Hacker News" or "what are the latest new submissions?" The server handles the underlying API calls and returns structured information about each story, including the title, URL, author, score, submission time, and number of comments.

The server typically returns a list of story identifiers and metadata, giving you everything needed to understand what's being discussed and decide which items warrant deeper investigation. From there, you can drill into specific stories to read their full comment threads or explore related submissions.

Practical Applications

Use top stories to stay current with trending tech discussions during your workday. Monitor new stories if you're tracking specific topics or competitors and want immediate awareness of relevant posts. Review best stories periodically to catch exceptional content and high-quality discussions that have lasting value beyond the news cycle.